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Defy Gravity! Centripetal Force According to Newton's law of inertia, an object already moving will continue to move in a straight line at a constant speed unless acted on by an outside force. Thus, to make an object move in a circular path, an outside force must act on the object. Centripetal force is the force that pushes or pulls an object inward so that it will move in a circular path. The word centripetal means to seek the center. When you whirl a stone tied to a string in a circle, you must constantly pull on the string to keep the stone from flying off in a straight line.
Rube Goldberg : Home of the Official Rube Goldberg Machine Contests The Rube Goldberg Machine Contest (RGMC) is an annual international competition that challenges teams of students from middle school to college age to compete in building the most elaborate and hilarious Rube Goldberg Machine. A Rube Goldberg Machine is an overly complex contraption, designed with humor and a narrative, to accomplish a simple task. The 2015 Task is: ERASE A CHALKBOARD.
www.physicscentral.com/explore/einstein/index.cfm A New World View A New World View is a tribute to the World Year of Physics 2005. The artists designed A New World View to challenge and inspire today's children to build on the science of the past and be a part of the science of the future. Einstein's Miracle Year Newton's Third Law of Motion: Astronauts in Outer Space One of NASA's first attempts at a "space walk" turned into an exhausting failure for astronaut Gene Cernan. Unlike astronauts who had "walked" in space on previous missions, Cernan had several tasks to accomplish outside the spacecraft. However, every time he attempted to push or turn a valve, he was sent hurtling in the opposite direction, with little control over his trajectory. After many exhausting minutes, his mission outside the capsule was called off, and NASA scientists began trying to figure out what went wrong. NASA scientists and engineers should probably have predicted that if an astronaut applied force to open or close a valve, the valve would apply the same amount of force to him, but in the opposite direction. After all, nearly 300 years ago, Isaac Newton presented what came to be known as his third law of motion, which says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
ASPIRE Simple & Comples Machines In an unknown time and an uncharted place, the ASPIRE crew has accepted the challenge to assist in the completion of a city being constructed of massive stones. They must work without the advantage of modern technology. They have agreed to rely primarily on the use of the six simple machines to accomplish their mission. The Simple Idea Behind Einstein’s Greatest Discoveries The flashier fruits of Albert Einstein’s century-old insights are by now deeply embedded in the popular imagination: Black holes, time warps and wormholes show up regularly as plot points in movies, books, TV shows. At the same time, they fuel cutting-edge research, helping physicists pose questions about the nature of space, time, even information itself. Perhaps ironically, though, what is arguably the most revolutionary part of Einstein’s legacy rarely gets attention. It has none of the splash of gravitational waves, the pull of black holes or even the charm of quarks.
Carnival Physics: Midway Games Two common carnival games, "Break the Plate" and "Knock the Blocks off the Table," require energy (the ability to do work or make changes to the physical world) to win. Where does that energy come from? The energy comes from you, the player. Dark Matter's Last Stand Scientists are fond of saying negative results are just as important as positive results, but after several decades of not finding something, researchers can be forgiven for feeling impatient. Back in the 1990s, experiments began trying to detect the particles that make up dark matter, the ubiquitous yet untouchable invisible material that apparently fills the cosmos. Since then, physicists have found more and more evidence that dark matter is real but not a single sign of the stuff itself. A new version of the long-running XENON experiment that started up late last year aims to finally break that pattern. One of physicists' best guesses about the identity of dark matter has long been that it is made of particles called WIMPs—weakly interacting, massive particles. Of course, so are many other dark matter candidates.
Centripetal Force: Pulling Cs and Gs When an object moves in a circle, which is effectively what a car does when it rounds a bend in the road, the moving object must be pulled or pushed inward toward what's called the center of rotation. It's this force acting toward the center—the centripetal force—that keeps an object moving along a curved path. Centripetal force prevents moving objects from exiting a curve and flying off in a straight line by continuously making them change their direction toward the center of rotation. Gravity plays an important role in this. On Earth, gravity applies a constant downward force on all objects.